Rublev advanced to his first ATP Masters 1000 quarterfinal since last May, when he reached the final eight in Madrid, with his 15th victory of the year.
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Andrey Rublev defeated longtime friend Karen Khachanov 7-6(4), 6-2 on Thursday to advance to the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters quarterfinals, earning his 50th tour-level victory on clay. The fifth seed did well in the Principality’s windy conditions. After an hour and a half, he advanced by striking the ball cleanly from the baseline, hitting 20 goals and coming back with depth. Rublev advanced to his first ATP Masters 1000 quarterfinal since last May, when he reached the final eight in Madrid, with his 15th victory of the year.
“We know each other too well. The first set was only mental. We didn’t show some tennis skills,” Rublev said. “But it was tough to show skills because the wind was really hard and the court was slippery and it was tough to do something. The first set was super mental. As soon as I was able to win a set, I started to feel more free and I felt Karen felt more down, so that was the difference.”
Rublev has pleasant memories of Monte-Carlo after winning the championship match there in 2021. The 25-year-old will next play Jan-Lennard Struff this week as he pursues his first ATP Masters 1000 championship. Struff, a German qualifier, defeated World No. 4 Casper earlier in an hour and 45 minutes to earn his first Top 10 victory since June 2021, when he defeated Daniil Medvedev, who was then ranked No. 2, in Halle.
To reach his first ATP Masters 1000 quarterfinal since Cincinnati in 2020, the 32-year-old blasted down 37 aces and broke the Norwegian’s serve four times. Following his performance in the Principality, Struff has moved up 36 spots to No. 64 in the ATP Rankings. When he faces off against Rublev in the final eight, he intends to ascend even higher.
Stefanos Tsitsipas is on a roll at the 2023 Monte Carlo Masters. With a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Nicolas Jarry in the third round of the ATP Masters 1000 event on clay courts on Thursday, the champion for 2021 and 2022 extended his winning streak there to 12 games. On Court Rainier III, the second-seeded Tsitsipas defeated the World No. 58 Jarry in 93 minutes with a fortress performance. Tsitsipas qualified for the quarterfinals with just one break of the Chilean’s serve in each set. He won 80% (32/40) of the points behind his own first serve and avoided both break points he was presented with.
Jarry had won the pair’s lone previous head to head match on the grass of Hertogenbosch in 2019 despite the fact that Tsitsipas had a strong Monte Carlo record going into their match. The Greek was proud of himself for taking charge of a tense confrontation to prevent a repeat of that outcome.
“I had to deal with a few [tough] points, especially when he had break points,” reflected Tsitsipas. “I dealt with those situations very maturely and played precisely, so it was great out there. He’s someone that has had good results on clay, someone that can serve big as well,” added the Greek. “It was all sort of played in the small details, and I’m really happy that I pulled through and gave myself such a good ending to this match.”
